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Strength-of-Many
Motivation: End slavery. While he’s at it, end slavers. Caste: Full Moon Anima Banner: A ghost-pale bull with fiery eyes. Spirit Shape: Bull (Tell - Cattle hooves for feet) The grain farms around Chiaroscuro need many slaves to work them. The boy who became Strength-of-Many grew up as one such slave. The overseers came to fear his strength and spirit. After the young slave broke the neck of an overseer who tried to rape a slave girl, his owners decided to whip him to death. with the 28th stroke, he Exalted. Few of the farm’s owners or overseers escaped the wrath of the new Lunar. The Realm’s garrison in Chiaroscuro forced Strength-of-Many to flee, but the Silver Pact soon found him. His trials and deeds easily established him as one of Luna’s Warriors. Strength-of-Many decided to make ending slavery his life’s work. However, he soon realized he could never kill every slave taker in the South. An older Lunar convinced Strength-of-Many that to cause real change, he needed to make himself a legend and inspire a movement. Strength-of-Many now practices a calculated terror—massacring guards and masters of slave caravans, but making sure that slaves reach towns to spread the tale. Moreover, he looks for slaves with the determination and compassion to help others, not just seek their own freedom. Slaves throughout the South hear the story of the man-bull who breaks chains as easily as he breaks the necks of overseers, and new hope flickers in their eyes. Some have begun to pray to him for deliverance (though some mistake Strength-of-Many for Ahlat and pray to that god instead). The Lunar revolutionary knows this is only a start. He must build a cadre of followers and teach them the arts of war. First, however, he must know these arts himself. Strength-of-Many is no fool—he is in fact quite cunning at ambushing slavers, often using himself as bait—but he understands how much he must learn. He will not become a member of the Winding Path soon, but hopes to qualify eventually (and he suspects his mentor is of that Lunar faction). It saddens Strength-of-Many that his liberations often result in the deaths of slaves when they flee blindly into the wilderness or loot and burn their owners’ houses without thought for the reprisals that must come, but at least they die without their chains. Strength-of-Many often hides his compassion and sorrow behind gruff words, but cares deeply about the people he rescues. In his human form, Strength-of-Many is an amazingly tall and muscular man with weathered brown skin and an untidy mop of red-brown hair. His spirit form is a longhorn bull of similar coloring. In his war farm, the Lunar becomes a man-bull standing a full 10 feet tall, counting his horns. He generally wears a kilt and cloak with a loose cowl or a pelt wrapped around his shoulders. Strength-of-Many wields a moonsilver grimcleaver. In his war form’s hand, the massive weapon looks almost dainty. When he cannot carry the grimcleaver (for instance, if he poses as a wandering simpleton to lure slave takers or infiltrates the slaves at a plantation), he crushes his foes with hooves, horns, fists and raw strength.